A hard choice made easier: my reaction to E3 – Reader’s feature

A reader gives his reaction to the recent E3 expo and explains why it may lead to him cancelling both his next gen console pre-orders.

Well, E3 has come and gone and the big boys showed off their toys as usual, while looking ever so proud of what they’ve done.

We finally got to see the PlayStation 4 which, let’s be honest, after the four months since the PlayStation event wasn’t worth the wait. I understand building suspense but in my honest opinion it looks like a cross between a PlayStation 2 and a bourbon biscuit. But Sony seemed to win the audience over with their trading/lending games demo poking fun at their competition Microsoft.

Let’s look at some of the games I was happy to see announced. I’m going to start off with Killer Instinct, a game that I still play to this day on the SNES and Killer Instinct Gold on the Nintendo 64 (by the way this is a reason I actually need to delete my eBay account as I seem to spend more money on retro games than I do on new ones).

Killer Instinct is one of my favourite fighting games of all time but Rare only brought out the two games and then there has been the 17 year wait for this announcement (let’s hope it doesn’t disappoint like the last big wait we had for a game – cough – Duke Nukem Forever).

Right now I could go on about Star Wars: Battlefront that was also announced, but I’m only allowed 500 to 600 words so all I will say is EA: please don’t mess Battlefront up, please!

Another game I’m looking forward to and that’s the reboot of Thief. Thief was one of the first games that really got me in to PC gaming and it’s also another game I still play every now and then, not as much as Star Wars: Battlefront II or Killer instinct but I still think it’s a game that has stood the test of time.

Some of these are games that I’ve been waiting for years. now this is where I can see a problem, a couple of years ago Duke Nukem Forever was released and we had been waiting for this game for years, now quite a few people including myself was disappointment by this game. Now if Duke Nukem was a new franchise and didn’t have its legacy I think it would have been considered a good game, not a great game but a good game.

I think after waiting years and years for a game to be announced and released, as gamers we tend to build up such high expectations in our heads of how the game should be that the game actually released is only going to disappoint. I’m hoping Rare, Eidos, and EA prove me wrong.

I still haven’t made my final decision on which console to get on release date at the moment, I have both consoles pre-ordered on a website that didn’t require a £20 deposit so I can cancel my pre-orders at any time.

To be honest, as I write this I think I may cancel both my pre-orders and use the money to buy some games for my SNES. One game I’m looking at owning again is a US import of Final Fantasy VI as I’ve nearly completed Chrono Trigger again.

I still think Final Fantasy VI is one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made, although Final Fantasy VII is a close second. I think that’s what this year’s E3 has made me miss. The days when games had some heart and soul to them, when it felt like developers loved what they were doing and the games showed it.

By reader Anthony Graham

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk.